


Collision

by lalejandra



Category: lotrips
Genre: M/M, Poetry, Transformative Works Welcome, Vanity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-13
Updated: 2004-03-13
Packaged: 2019-07-14 19:43:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16047257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalejandra/pseuds/lalejandra
Summary: When your eyes are flat like the sky turning grey and clouds drift across them, I know that something is wrong. Why else would you come to me and ask about my teeth? My teeth are ridged by years of ripping and chewing and they could tear you apart, but you trust me. I will protect you.





	Collision

"What's it like to be so... _magnetic_?" asks Elijah.

Viggo leans into the car and says, "What do you mean?"

Instead of answering, Elijah leans up and kisses him. Elijah tastes like cinnamon, the smooth bite of a good whiskey. Viggo's lips tingle from the alcohol. Elijah pulls away; Viggo stands up and raises a palm to the window.

"Go," says Elijah to the driver.

*

Viggo knows that most "famous" people have people around them all the time. They have a manager and a personal assistant and a handler. They have a dresser, a stylist, and lots of other people that Viggo can't keep straight. He did it for about three days, and then fired everyone. He can't be bothered. What's going to happen if he does shots with a reporter or says "fuck" in an interview or tells Jude Law to shut the hell up? What is his adoring public going to do to him? Take away his birthday? Stop going to see his movies so that he returns to relative obscurity?

To coin a phrase from Elijah, Dom, and Orlando, "Whatevah." Sometimes Elijah even makes a W with his hands by putting his pointer fingers in the air and touching his thumbs together. Viggo tries it, and then lets one pointer finger continue to point to the ceiling, but rotates his wrist so that the other points down. Then he stretches out his fingers so that all the fingers on his right hand point to the ceiling, and all the fingers on his left hand point to the floor. _Viggo_. That's how Elijah used to do it. He would flash the sign at Viggo whenever Viggo went on a bit too long about The Craft and The Way To Do It and Art. _Viggo_ , Elijah would whisper, and then bring his hands up to frame his face, palms out.

Viggo never got it; Elijah insists to this day that it's from a television show. Where Elijah finds the time to watch television, Viggo doesn't know. Elijah is too busy getting drunk every night, smoking too many packs of cigarettes, making bad movies just to work with a particular director or another actor, and hurting Dom and Billy. Elijah is too busy kissing Viggo in the backseats of cabs. The picture was in the _Star_ the next day; Viggo's manager sent fifteen copies to him.

"Never underestimate the power of the camera phone," says the cabbie in the interview.

"This wouldn't have happened if you kept your handler," says his manager the next time they talk.

"Dude, we're on the _cover_ of _Star_! Fucking awesome!" says Elijah to Viggo's answering machine, and he could hear a girl in the background, giggling.

Viggo is past the point in his life where he will go out with a girl just because she finds the idea of him having sex with his costars hot. That's boring, and childish, and... Well, Viggo would rather be having sex with (some, not all of) his costars.

*

"Are you mad at me?" asks Elijah, his voice tinny.

"Where are you?" Viggo asks in response.

"Somewhere in the sky."

"Are you high?"

"Really, really, really high."

"Which drugs?" Viggo presses his lips together. He's not going to judge; he's worried.

"No drugs, man. _Airplane_." Elijah is laughing, HEE HEE HEE, and Viggo is angry.

"I'm not mad at you," he says, and hangs up. The phone rings again a minute or two later, and Viggo doesn't pick it up.

*

Viggo is always surprised when he's asked whether or not his "crunchiness" is real. What the hell does that mean, anyway? Is he yogurt, and instead of granola, there's plastic? He tries to keep his temper, always, because it's not the interviewer's fault, mostly, that he or she is asking such dumb questions. His answer is always, "I am as real as anyone," but they tend to change that because they don't like the way it sounds. Sometimes they ask for his handler or his manager or his personal assistant.

Mostly all Viggo asks for is tea and tequila. Rarely at the same time.

Viggo is not quite sure exactly when he turned into someone who could possibly be a drunk, and he resolves to stop drinking as soon as possible -- but it's never possible, because he's always someplace where he's being handed a beer or a shot or a cranberry-ginger ale-vodka-something, and it would be impossible for him to decline without making a big scene.

See? He thinks about his public.

Viggo thinks maybe there is something wrong with the fact that he would rather turn himself into an alcoholic than allow the press to speculate that he is one. Maybe his priorities aren't in order. Christine has always been an alcoholic, and has never seemed to care that her press isn't as good as it could be. Of course, Christine hasn't ever had the kind of press Viggo is getting.

Viggo misses the good old days, when he was relatively obscure and could wear a caftan if he wanted to. Liv giggled at him the first time she saw him wear one, and called it a _shmata_. He didn't know what the word meant, but Henry had. "It's Yiddish for rag'," he dutifully reported, and instead of being offended as he knew he probably should be, Viggo wondered how Liv knew Yiddish.

*

"How often do you brush your teeth?" asks Elijah. He's been crying, Viggo notices, because his eyes are that sheer blue, very flat, like the sky turning grey.

Viggo composes a poem in his head: When your eyes are flat like the sky turning grey and clouds drift across them, I know that something is wrong. Why else would you come to me and ask about my teeth? My teeth are ridged by years of ripping and chewing and they could tear you apart, but you trust me. I will protect you.

Elijah is waiting, patiently. This is how Viggo knows he isn't drunk. Drunk Elijah is impatient and loud; sober Elijah sits and waits and even though he sometimes fidgets, he doesn't kiss Viggo in taxi cabs or joke about it on Leno afterwards.

"When I remember to," Viggo finally replies, and he is the first to turn away.

He sees Dom, with one of his new costars, Ian Something, doing shots, and has a list of questions suddenly that _he_ wants to ask Elijah, but Elijah is gone and Viggo can't find him.

Viggo doesn't rush to write down the poem; instead, he stays around and watches Dom watch Ian. One of his questions for Elijah is "Why aren't _they_ on the cover of _Star_?" Maybe it's less scandalous when it's two of the most arguably beautiful people in the world. Maybe it's only scandalous when they can use words like "Lolita" and "mid-life crisis" and "Hobbit-like". Viggo is kind of surprised, actually, that Elijah doesn't make it onto the list of people who are actually good-looking. The phrase "Hobbit-like" would never be used to describe Dominic, especially now that he's wearing leather pants and eyeliner. His date, his costar, his whatever -- he has weird ears.

Viggo works that into the poem, because Elijah has perfect ears.

  



End file.
